It Didn't Have to Happen

“I’m learning that milestones are a
very difficult thing to get through in this first year ... Everything has
become ‘after Noah’s death,’” said Jodi Sandoval through a stream of tears. Jodi lost her 14-year-old son Noah
McGuire to gun violence in Clintonville, Ohio on July 5, 2012.

Jodi had made the deliberate
decision to keep guns out of her own home in an effort to protect her five
children: “I thought that by making a mindful choice not to have guns in my home
or to allow guns in my home, to explain to my kids, explain to Noah, my
feelings on the violent video games, the gun culture, the violence culture -- I
thought that if I said the right things and did the right things that somehow
that would protect him from what happened to him.” But she couldn’t keep Noah
safe when he went on a sleepover at his friend Levi Reed’s grandparents’ home. Levi was also 14 years old that day when he
found and started fooling around with his grandfather’s loaded and unlocked
gun.

“Children are curious ... With
guns it just seems common sense is the best measure to take against accidents
like Noah’s death. Totally accidental: His friend pulled the trigger, the magazine wasn’t in the gun, [but] he
didn’t know there was a bullet in the chamber.

Now Jodi is wracked with grief and
guilt. “I feel horrible that I had no idea that Noah was playing in a house
where ... there were guns.” Noah and his family aren’t the only victims of
this tragic accident. Levi Reed was charged with delinquency and reckless
homicide after accidentally killing his friend, and his life will be forever
altered and burdened by this tragedy.

Noah’s death, like thousands of
other American children’s deaths, didn’t have to happen. It could very easily have been prevented with
common sense gun safety and safe gun storage laws and practices by gun owners. In
2010, 134 children and teenagers died from accidental shootings, and more than
3,000 others suffered accidental gun injuries. Many of the accidental gun
victims and shooters are younger than Levi and Noah. They include children like
three-year-old Darrien Nez, who died in Arizona on April 29 after shooting
himself in the face with a gun he found while playing with his grandmother’s
bag. Or two-year-old Caroline Sparks, who was killed at her Kentucky home on
April 30 by her five-year-old brother with a rifle he had been given as a
birthday gift. Or two-year-old Sincere Tymere Smith, whose pastor and
grandmother told MSNBC he was known for being inseparable from his father, but who
died after shooting himself in the chest with his father’s gun on Christmas
night. When adults choose to own guns
adults must take responsibility for
keeping their guns locked up and out of the hands of children.

Many Americans are surprised when
they learn how simple many guns are for even toddlers to fire and that the same
two-year-old who can’t open a childproof medicine bottle might be able to pull
a trigger and shoot herself or someone else. In fact, a 1976 amendment to the
Consumer Product Safety Act that the National Rifle Association advocated for specifically
forbids the Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC) from regulating the sale and manufacture of guns, despite the
fact that they are one of the most lethal consumer products, killing more than 30,000
people a year and injuring 72,000 others. As a result, the CPSC can regulate
teddy bears and toy guns but not real guns -- even though common sense design
changes and safety mechanisms like trigger locks can save lives. Eleven states
and the District of Columbia have acted to fill this void, passing laws
requiring locking devices on some or all firearms. But that means that in 39
states, there is no such requirement.

Another common sense answer is child
access prevention laws, which require gun owners to store their guns so that
children and teens can’t access them unsupervised. Studies have found these
laws reduce accidental shootings of children by as much as 23 percent. But only
14 states currently have such laws and support of stronger child access
prevention laws is often drowned out by the same loud voices of the gun lobby
that fight background checks and other common sense gun safety measures.

A law requiring Levi Reed’s
grandfather to store his gun safely might have saved Noah McGuire’s life. As
Jodi reflected, “Storing your firearms responsibly with constant regard that
there are children nearby -- if you have children in your home and you have
firearms, then that needs to be on the forefront of your mind at all times.” Enough is enough. It is time for responsible
parents everywhere to make sure everyone in their community stores their guns
safely out of the reach of unsupervised children. And it is time for
responsible citizens everywhere to stand up to the gun lobby and demand that
politicians pass common sense gun safety and safe storage laws. Visit the Law
Center to Prevent Gun Violence website to find out whether your state has laws
about gun locking devices and safe gun storage.